As you did not forward your request to my colleague while I was on
leave, we have taken the receipt date as being 14th September. I put the
out of office message on so that the School can continue to process
requests in my absence. If you don't forward the message as directed,
the School does not know it has been sent. I am entitled to annual leave
and am not the only person at the School that requests can be sent to.

With respect and my appreciation that you are entitled to annual leave, it is not my responsibility to understand the internal management of the LSE records office. If you believe it is, please point me towards the section of the Information Commissioner's guidance noting that it is the responsibility of the requester to resend requests if staff are absent for any reason.

If I may make a suggestion, consider changing the email address listed on the FOI section of the LSE website to a 'group' email address so that FOI requests and responses may continue despite absenses of the records office staff.

With reference to your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act, I am writing to inform you that your request has been
refused.

While it is the School's policy to respond as fully as possible to
requests for information, it is not always able to do so. In this case,
as the survey results of the National Student Survey are already
available on the Unistats website http://www.unistats.com/, we are
exempt from release under section 21, information already available.

With regards the comments, having consulted with HEFCE, the funding
council for the higher education sector in England as they own the data,
we are exempting the comments from release under section 40(2) as the
comments were provided by students with the understanding that only
universities and student unions would see the comments. As such, to
release the comments any further would not have been expected and would
be unfair to these students.

However, should you wish to appeal the decision, either contact me on
020 7955 6481 or put your appeal in writing to Jenny Bone, Head of
Planning and Corporate Policy Division, London School of Economics and
Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE. We will then
review the response to your request and get back to you within 20
working days. You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office
http://www.ico.gov.uk/, though they expect the internal review to be
carried out before receiving a complaint directly.

Yours sincerely,
Rachael Maguire
Records Manager
London School of Economics

With reference to your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act, I am writing to inform you that your request has been
refused.

While it is the School's policy to respond as fully as possible to
requests for information, it is not always able to do so. In this case,
as the survey results of the National Student Survey are already
available on the Unistats website http://www.unistats.com/, we are
exempt from release under section 21, information already available.

With regards the comments, having consulted with HEFCE, the funding
council for the higher education sector in England as they own the data,
we are exempting the comments from release under section 40(2) as the
comments were provided by students with the understanding that only
universities would see the comments. As such, to release the comments
any further would not have been expected and would be unfair to these
students.

However, should you wish to appeal the decision, either contact me on
020 7955 6481 or put your appeal in writing to Jenny Bone, Head of
Planning and Corporate Policy Division, London School of Economics and
Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE. We will then
review the response to your request and get back to you within 20
working days. You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office
http://www.ico.gov.uk/, though they expect the internal review to be
carried out before receiving a complaint directly.

Yours sincerely,
Rachael Maguire
Records Manager
London School of Economics

The results available on the Unistats website are only for academic units of LSE which achieved a greater than 50% response rate. If this is the case for all academic units of LSE, then I am happy with your response. If it is not the case, please let me know which units did not meet this requirement, the response rate they did achieve, and the NSS results you received from HEFCE for those units.

With reference to your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act, please find below the information you requested.

The departments with a response rate under 50% are Economic History with
44% and Operational research with 46%.

In making these data available we would like to stress the reasons why
these data are not routinely released into the public domain. In
establishing the survey the steering group was keen to ensure that any
data published were robust, that is to say that they provide a reliable
measure of underlying satisfaction. The steering group consulted
statistical experts on appropriate thresholds before receipt of the
results of the first survey, these were set at 50% and 40 responses.
Following several years of operation of the survey the steering group
felt it was appropriate to review these thresholds in light of
experience from the first surveys. HEFCE convened a group comprised of
statistical and NSS experts to review whether the thresholds could be
relaxed while maintaining the integrity of the survey. The group
concluded that the thresholds could be relaxed to 23 respondents and a
50% response rate without unduly affecting the validity of the survey.

If you think that the information provided does not meet your request,
contact me on 020 7955 6481 or write to Jenny Bone, Head of Planning and
Corporate Policy Division, London School of Economics and Political
Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE. We will then review the
response to your request and get back to you within 20 working days. You
can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office
http://www.ico.gov.uk/, though they expect the internal review to be
carried out before receiving a complaint directly.

The provision of information by the LSE under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 does not imply a right to copy, reproduce publish or otherwise
use such information.

Copying or reproducing such information in any way either in whole or in
part without prior written consent may be an infringement of copyright
or other intellectual property right belonging to the LSE or a third
party.

The School has provided the information asked for. We have pointed to
the HEFCE website which is already available to the general public for
your previous request. We have also provided the details for the two
departments with response rates under 50% requested in your second
request. Where we could not provide information, this has been explained
with the relevant exemption.

The National Student Survey is conducted by IPSOS MORI on behalf of
HEFCE and IPSOS MORI supply the School with the freetext comments that
are exempt as directed by HEFCE. Otherwise, the information is made
available to institutions via a website provided by IPSOS MORI. This
information contains results about the two departments with response
rates lower than 50% as requested.

At this point, you have the choice of contacting Jenny Bone, details
already provided, for an internal review or of contacting HEFCE directly
as this is data they own and have held for them by IPSOS MORI.